The Stranger I Met Today

My friend Hannah swims.  And, it’s not just swimming; it’s big deal swimming.  She recently swam a 10K in picturesque Lake George, New York.  She invited me to come with her, along with another one of our friends, Kate.  While we were planning our trip to the open water swim, Hannah mentioned that volunteer kayakers were needed for the swim.  Since Kate and I were going anyway, we signed up to kayak. 

The three of us arrived at launch at 7am.  Hannah was in the first heat of swimmers, so she went off to register while Kate and I looked for the volunteer meeting.  We found Rick, the coordinator, and checked in. 

“We’ll get the meeting started in just a few minutes, girls,” Rick said.  “If you’re interested in some prep work, you can start pulling the kayaks over to the water.”   We moved kayaks, paddles, and life jackets over and then reported back. 

“We’ll just wait a few more minutes and then have a short meeting to go over set-up, what to do if a swimmer panics, and your radios.  Oh, and answer any questions you have,” Rick said.  There were about 20 of us waiting around Rick. He counted something on his clipboard. 

“Do you think we won’t have enough kayaks?” I asked him. 

“Oh no, we’ll have plenty of kayaks.  We’re just short on volunteers.”

“How many signed up?”

He showed me the pages on his clipboard.  There were three pages of names and the highlighted names were the volunteers that had checked in already.  Less than half the names were yellow. 

“People sign up and don’t show?” I asked.

“I’ve been doing this for years.  There’s always a lot of people that sign-up and don’t show,” Rick said.  He shrugged his shoulders and went back to counting. 

“You’re kidding?”

Lesson Learned

There are plenty of people out there that disappoint.  I will always try to not be one of those people.  When I say I’m going to do something, I do it.  You should too.  Oh, in case you were wondering, Hannah rocked the swim and Kate rocked her kayak.